Tricking Reality
by Clare Hope
Summary: The archangel Gabriel was pulled down to Hell when he was killed. Now he's back, and Sam, Dean, and Castiel are helping him adjust. Or is this just another dream? (Warning for some torture, mostly mental. I don't own SPN; it's just fun to play there sometimes.)
1. Chapter 1

A blinding flash of pure white light illuminated the abandoned roadside very near to the dead center of the continental United States—Lebanon, Kansas. If someone had been watching (but no one had), they might have blinked at the brightness and shied away, but also found that they were strangely drawn to it. And they would have flinched with surprise when the light faded away to reveal a man lying on his side in the dead grass lining the road.

But there was no one watching, so there was no one to shy away and no one to help him. He was not a large man; rather, he was quite small and unimpressive. He had slightly floppy light brown hair, and his olive-green button-down shirt worn over a brown shirt and light blue jeans were tattered and bloodstained. His face looked like it should have been laughing or smirking with satisfaction, but instead was the picture of unconscious misery. If his eyes hadn't been closed, one might have seen that they were pale grey-green.

With a groan, he opened his eyes: grey-green, yes, and pained and haunted. Somehow, he found the strength to stand up and gaze around, confused. Then, perhaps, he figured out where he was, and stumbled along down the road.

There was a knock at the bunker door. "What the hell?" Dean Winchester said, irritated. "It's eleven at night."

Sam, his brother, sitting at the table reading some huge, ancient book, replied distractedly. "It's probably Cas."

"Cas would just come in, he doesn't knock," Dean objected. "Who could that even be? We don't know anyone who knows this place."

"Um, Jody? Garth? I don't know, man, just go look."

"You go answer it."

"Dude. Go answer the door."

"Fine." Dean walked over to the door sulkily. He unlatched the numerous locks on the handle and opened it. At the sight of the person standing beyond it, he practically jumped backwards with shock. "Holy _crap_!" he cried.

"Heya, Dean-o," Gabriel said, smiling tiredly. "Long time no see." Then he collapsed.

"Whoa!" Dean said, catching him before he hit the metal doorframe.

Sam's voice could be heard from the other room as he ran over. "What the—is that _Gabriel_?!"

"Uh…" Dean started, looking down in disbelief at the man he was supporting. "I think it is. How the hell is that…even possible?"

Sam, reaching them, took one look at the unconscious angel and nodded. "That's freaking Gabriel. Um. He's supposed to be dead."

"What do we do?"

"Get him inside? He looks like he's hurt." Sam reached out to help Dean, and together they dragged Gabriel into the bunker and put him on the nearest couch.

"Should we call Cas?" Sam asked.

"This is so out of our area. Yes. We're calling Cas." Dean closed his eyes. _Cas, we've got an old friend here. We need some help, it's—_

"Gabriel," Castiel breathed. With the fluttering of invisible wings, he was now standing right next to Dean. He went straight over to Gabriel and knelt next to the couch. He placed two fingers on Gabriel's forehead. "Brother, what happened to you?" he whispered, concerned.

Gabriel gave a slight gasp and tried to sit up, his eyes springing open. Cas pushed him back down. "Hey, Cassie," Gabriel murmured.

"Hello, Gabriel."

"You look worried, brother." Gabriel gave a faint smile.

"We believed you to be dead," Castiel replied bluntly. "Why are you not dead?"

"Let me sit up, Cas," Gabriel instructed. Cas obliged. "I was dead. Sort of. Dear Luci—" He made a face. "Killed me."

"We saw," Sam interjected. "What happened then?"

"What would any good brother do? He took me home."

Castiel frowned. "You mean…he brought you down to Hell?"

"Mmhmm. Trapped my grace, trapped my soul, whatever you want to call it. I don't know how he did it, but he took me there just like I was a human. Must have been a spell or something."

"And you've been in Hell all this time?" Castiel asked, careful sympathy in his voice.

Gabriel nodded. "How long has it been?"

"Like nearly four years," Dean stated.

Gabriel grimaced. "Yeesh. Felt a lot longer than that."

"Yes, I imagine it would." Castiel tilted his head to the side. "Dean has said that a month here corresponds to ten years in Hell. Is that what you found to be true?"

"Oh, I don't know. It isn't like I was counting the days, Cassie." He rubbed his hand across his eyes tiredly. "I stopped counting, actually. At ten thousand, I decided I wasn't going to keep counting for eternity. Besides, I wasn't always sure what was real and what was an illusion, so it seemed a bit pointless." As if suddenly aware of what he was saying, he stopped talking.

Castiel didn't press him about it. "Your clothing is covered in blood. Are you injured?"

"Is it?" Gabriel responded, confused. He looked down at his shirt. "Oh, I guess so."

Dean interrupted them. "Gabe, he was asking if you were hurt."

"Quite possibly. I'm not too concerned." He looked directly at Cas. "Cassie, I don't have my grace anymore." Suddenly, his voice wasn't cocky and self-assured, but small and sad.

Without a word, Cas reached up and touched Gabriel's forehead again. A slight glow filled the air and then dimmed, the blood on the shirt gone completely. Gabriel sighed slightly. "Oh. I guess I was hurt, then." For the second time, his eyes closed and he slumped over.

Castiel stood up quickly, stopping the former archangel from slipping off of the couch by grasping his shoulders. "Gabriel, please stay awake," he instructed.

He shook his head slowly. "I think I'm going to pass out now, Castiel. See you in the morning…" Cas couldn't wake him up again. He let Gabriel lie back down on the couch carefully.

A rather stunned silence filled the room. "Well," Dean said finally. "_That_ just happened."

Sam looked at Cas. "He lost his grace? He isn't an angel anymore?" Castiel nodded. "Wow. An essentially human Gabriel. That is not something I ever thought I would see."

"We never thought we were going to see him again anyway, human or angel," Dean countered. "What does this mean? If what he said was true and he's been in Hell all this time…how did he get out? Who brought him back?"

"And is it actually him?" Sam added. "I mean, are we sure it's Gabriel and not…I don't know, shape-shifter, skinwalker, demon…Whatever?"

"No," Cas started slowly, "no, it really is him. I'm sure of it."

"Now that that's settled, what are we going to do with him?" Dean posed. "I don't suppose you can take him, Cas?"

Cas looked thoughtful. "I could if I had to, but the situation would not be ideal. Can't he stay here with you for the time being?"

"Of course he can, I mean, he died for us. It's the least we can do. Right, Dean?"

"Yeah. Sure. Though I'm not looking forward to taking care of a probably traumatized ex-angel who is also an annoying ass."

"So to be clear, you two are willing to let him stay here if he wants until he figures out how to live as a human?" Cas clarified. "I realize he isn't exactly your favorite person…"

"Dude, he's not even our favorite angel," Sam laughed.

Cas frowned, trying to work out what that meant. "Who is?"

Sam raised his eyebrows. "Um…you…?"

Dean smirked. "As long as he can't, you know, stick us into TV-hell again."

Sam shuddered. "Or time loops. Tuesday," he added in a halfway inaudible mutter.

Castiel nodded, relieved. "No, he can't do either of those now. He no longer has any of his angelic powers. He is, for all intents and purposes, human."

"Hey, how did that happen, exactly?" Sammy wanted to know. "Did his grace, like, get left behind in Hell or what?"

"More likely, it faded," Cas answered. "Please don't ask me to explain how that works. Gabriel can, if he wants to try. I must take my leave now; I am very busy." _Whoosh._ He was gone.

* * *

><p><em>Thank you for reading this. I'm going to keep author's notes super short on this story. Love you all!<em>


	2. Chapter 2

_My vision is split into a thousand fractured images. They are all the same, or so similar that I can't tell the difference. None of them seem small either. They are all full sized views, and all of them feel real. As if this isn't mind-splitting enough, I have to pick which one I think is the real one. Choosing the wrong one has terrible consequences. _

_Of course, I don't_ even_ know if _any _of them are real. It could be rigged so I always pick the wrong one. I would not be at all surprised. I've played the 'game' so many times I've lost count. Somewhere in the high seven thousands, I think, and I've never gotten it right. I don't know what is real anymore. I don't know if anything is real. They're playing with my head. _

_I was promised that if I got it right, I could leave. I obviously don't believe that. Unfortunately, it gives me just enough impossible hope to keep me going, because guessing wrong means pain. If I just never chose, nothing would happen. I'd be stuck in the same image for all eternity, sure, but I wouldn't get physically tortured either. _

_So, let me spell this out for you. I have to choose, against insurmountable odds, one version of reality. Guessing wrong gets me basically ripped apart. Guessing right probably also means getting ripped apart, but there is the tiniest, tiniest chance that it could also get me out of here. And not guessing at all means I won't be torn to bits, but also that I have no chance of escape, ever. _

_I'm split up into so many different minds, I can't tell what pain is real and what is imagined. But the promise of release is greater than the pain of failure. _

_And, the million dollar question: which image should I choose? I have given up trying to discern anything that rings false in any of the visions. Funny, I used to be so good at creating and living in false realities. That was _my_ game. And now it's playing against me. So I choose. _

_And then there is the awful moments between when the visions disappear and when they tell me I'm wrong. That might be the worst: even more disorienting than the rest, and then there's the suspense and the anticipation. I'm waiting for when they tell me I'm correct, even though I know it won't happen. _

_ "__So sorry, Gabriel, that's wrong." Of course it is. _

_And then I can't stop myself from screaming as my skin (which may or may not be real) is ripped apart by invisible knives and I fall onto the floor (which also may or may not be real). And I can't help continuing the screaming long after I have no throat, because hey, I am the Trickster, and if there is one thing I can do, it's the impossible._

* * *

><p>So the chapters alternate between the style of the first chapter and this chapter. There are eight chapters, I'm publishing them in pairs. Thank you for reading! I love you, SPN family.<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

"I don't know."

"Seriously? Because I find that hard to believe. Yeah, no, I'm not buying that you walk straight out of Hell and _just happen_ to land less than a mile away from our bunker, which you then knew how to find, and knew we would be here." Dean was getting frustrated. Gabriel refused to give him any straight answers.

Gabriel was getting defensive. "Well, hey, it's the truth, Dean-o. I don't remember how I got out of Hell and I don't know how I knew where to find you."

"Say we believe you," Sam interrupted.

"You really should, you know," Gabriel muttered. "I did die for you."

"We know," Sammy said. "And we never did thank you for that."

"Well, yeah, 'cause he was dead."

Sam refused to let go of the point. "So, we're doing it now. Thank you for sacrificing yourself for us."

"He didn't do it just for us," Dean felt obliged to point out.

"Shut up, Dean." Sam turned back to Gabriel. "But I don't think that you're telling us the whole truth."

Gabriel stood up off the couch and walked away to the edge of the room, keeping his back pointedly turned towards the boys. "And why should I?"

"Because we're actually trying to help you."

"I don't need any help."

Sam laughed. "Yeah, you do. You have no idea how to function as a normal human."

"Excuse you, I acted like a human for millennia before you two came along and discovered me!"

"Well, no, you didn't," Dean argued. "You lived on Earth, sure, but you played pagan god for a while and when you weren't doing that, you were creating your own little fantasy worlds and punishing people magically who pissed you off. Not exactly human, don't you think?"

Gabe snorted. "Details."

"Did you ever have an actual job?" Sam pressed.

Gabriel turned back around and scowled at them both. "Yes!"

"One that you could actually make a living off of?" Dean clarified.

That shut him up for a second. Then "No," he said honestly. "Not really, no. Well…once. But that was in the Middle Ages and there was this girl…erm, not important now, I don't think."

"Probably not," Dean agreed readily.

"All right, I answered your questions."

"Not really," Dean muttered. Gabriel glared.

"Your turn. What's been happening topside?"

Sam glanced at Dean and Dean nodded his permission for his little brother to tell the story. It was quite an interesting tale. "Well…I became Lucifer's vessel long enough to throw myself and Lucifer and Michael into the cage. Then I got pulled out, but my soul got left behind. Eventually Dean made a deal with Death and got my soul back, and Death put a wall in my mind so I wouldn't remember Hell, but Cas broke it down because he was working with the King of Hell, Crowley, and he was going to swallow every soul in Purgatory and become the new God—"

"What?!"

Sam was on a roll and didn't stop to elaborate. "And he did, but then there were leviathans and everyone thought he had died, but he hadn't, and we had to deal with the leviathans without him. Oh, and I kind of went insane, and I was dying, but then Cas showed up, at first sort of human but then he wasn't and he took the crazy part out of me and into himself and then he was in a coma for several months and Meg, a demon, took care of him."

"_What?!"_

"Yeah. And there's a new prophet, Kevin, and…wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. Then a couple months later, Cas woke up and we thought he was going to be okay, but he was basically a child. And he really liked bees, and he didn't like fighting. But he liked Meg, for some reason."

"And Sorry!, the board game," Dean broke in.

"That too. But then there was this tablet that has all sorts of information on monsters, and we needed to translate it because we needed to know how to kill leviathans and then there was this prophet we met. He's just a kid, really, not even in college yet. His name's Kevin. And he figured out how to kill them, but when we did…Um, Dean and Cas got dragged back to Purgatory with them. And…Dean?"

Dean took over. "Well, me and Cas were in Purgatory, and Sam stopped hunting because of this chick and a dog."

"It wasn't exactly like that, Dean."

"Basically it was. And then someone helped me out of Purgatory, and I got him out too, but Cas was left behind. And he showed up a couple months after that and we still have no idea how he got out. But he's not nuts anymore, so that's good, and he's got his whole angel mojo. Right now, we're working on the demon tablet. There's a series of three trials that if we complete, could close the Gates of Hell forever. No more demons to deal with up here, ever. I was supposed to be the one who was doing the trials, but Sammy completed the first one instead of me. So now Kevin is sitting in some small enclosed space trying to translate the next bit. And…that's just about it for important stuff. Oh! And Crowley, the aforementioned King of Hell, drops in occasionally and only tries to kill us half the time."

"_WHAT?!" _Gabriel looked incredulously at both of them.

Sam nodded.

Randomly, Gabriel started laughing. "This…this is ridiculous!" he managed. Then he stopped laughing and looked suspiciously at Sam and Dean. "This is all fake, isn't it? I never got out. This isn't real."


	4. Chapter 4

_How many times have I thought I've gotten out? Only three, before now. I suppose they keep these illusions few and far between because otherwise I would just learn to expect it. I'll give them one thing; they're clever. They never start the dreams in the same way. _

_The first time was possibly the worst, because I actually believed it. I hadn't been in Hell very long, and I was still fighting their system. Testing them. Taunting them. That sort of thing. So when I spat out an answer to one of their little games, and they told me I was correct and I could leave, well, I was surprised. But the dream felt so real. I was dropped in a forest somewhere, and then Castiel was there. He told me that I was safe now. I believed him. I was happy for two weeks in that dream. But what made it realistic was that it wasn't perfect. I would have nightmares when I slept. I didn't have my grace. There were no moments that were skipped; time passed in a not-dream kind of way. _

_But then one time, the nightmare wouldn't stop. I tried to wake up, but it didn't work. I screamed for Cas, knowing he would come and wake me if he heard me. But he never came, and that's when I knew I was wrong. I had never left. I wasn't asleep; I had only woken up. It was just a new kind of torture. _

_The second time was very different. I didn't win a game to get out. I was rescued by Castiel and Sam and Dean Winchester. "We defeated Lucifer," they said. "He told us that he had you down here. Come on, we're here to save you." It was really believable, too, when they explained. They had thought out their story really well. But in the end, just before we should have reached the surface, the three people who were supposedly helping me morphed into demons. They dragged me back down. They were laughing. I wasn't. _

_It was a long time before the next "escape dream". I was pretty far gone, very close to being broken. And this cut the last string I was clinging to: snapped it right in half. They started the dream right in the middle of me getting ripped into shreds. It started similarly to the first one. I appeared somewhere not in Hell, only this time I was screaming. Then the pain disappeared. Someone was shouting at me to wake up. The memories of Hell started to fade away, and suddenly I was young again. Like, really young. Only a couple thousand years old, and my favorite older brother was standing over me. "Are you okay, Gabriel? I think you were having a nightmare." _

_ "__Yeah, Luci, I'm okay. Thanks for waking me. I don't know what I was dreaming about, but thanks."_

_ "__It must have been pretty bad."_

_ "__Don't worry about it." _

_ "__Okay. Come on, we could go and fly to a star! Maybe it'll sing to us again." _

_Yeah, so that was _my_ childhood. And right then, I couldn't remember anything from either the 'dream' I had just 'woken' from or, well, the rest of my life. I really was just a kid again. And I spent ages there. I never had another nightmare in this dream. I was just…okay. There was absolutely nothing to suggest it wasn't real, because I had no reason to be suspicious. _

_Until I woke up back in Hell and remembered everything and knew that it had all been false. I'll admit it, I snapped. I broke. I swore I would never fall for another one again. I suppose that was their way of ensuring that even if I ever really did get out, they would still be tormenting me for the rest of my life. _

_Well, look-y at that. It worked._


	5. Chapter 5

"Where the hell could he have gone?" Dean shouted into the phone. He was parked in the Impala on the edge of the road several miles away from the bunker.

On the other end, Sam, wincing at the noise, tried to respond calmly. "I've no idea, but I'm sure that he can't have gone too far. He doesn't have his wings anymore, so he had to have walked. If we have to, we can call Cas, and I'm sure he could find Gabriel, but he's busy." Sam had stayed behind at the bunker in case Gabriel came back. Neither of them thought that was very likely, but it was better to be safe.

Gabriel had left the bunker right after saying his remark about nothing being real. Sam and Dean had tried to go after him but even in the light of day Gabriel had disappeared. And though he couldn't have literally disappeared because he didn't have wings, he was still very good at hiding.

Gabriel wasn't hiding. He was walking. Staying just out of sight, sure, but not _hiding_. Certainly not hiding from anyone in particular. Why couldn't he have kept his wings in this dream? It was very irritating. He could be pulled back to Hell at any second, and he preferred not wasting his time with something as pointless at walking. He had never really gotten the hang of it. As long as he had lived on Earth, he never really had to walk to get from Point A to Point B.

Not that he had a Point B in mind right now. Somewhere he could rest, maybe. He'd been in this dream for almost a day now. This was confusing; he obviously wasn't going to be playing the game he was supposed to, so why let him stay? Usually his torturers were more intelligent than that.

He couldn't think clearly. Was that normal for humans? It wasn't very comfortable. Suddenly, Gabriel was very, very tired. How long did humans usually go without sleep? Was it a couple days? He wished he had paid more attention. This may all have been fake, but it still felt real. And the heat radiating off of the black road felt all too real. His head hurt. Everything was blurry. This probably wasn't normal.

All of a sudden, the ground looked really, really nice. And that's when it hit him.

Or did he hit it? He couldn't exactly tell.

After that, he didn't care. Darkness was quite welcome to come and stay awhile. And it did.

After Sam hung up, Dean decided that it really was time to call Cas. He didn't want to think about what would happen if Cas popped in and they had lost Gabriel. Still sitting in the Impala, Dean closed his eyes. _Cas, Gabriel's gone. We don't know where he went. We need help. _

"I'm here, Dean."

Dean looked to the passenger's seat quickly. Sure enough, there was their friendly trench-coated angel. "Can you find him?"

"I can try. I'll meet you and Sam back at the Men of Letters' bunker." And he was gone again.

Castiel found Gabriel easy enough. What he found concerned him, though. The ex-archangel was curled up in the grass at the side of a road several miles from the bunker. He was deeply unconscious, and Castiel wasn't sure, but he believed that he was running a very high fever. Gabriel didn't stir as Cas knelt down, lifted him halfway off of the ground, and cradled him in his arms. "Hold on, Gabriel," Castiel murmured.

The next instant, they were in the bunker. "Help!" Cas called, hoping that at least one of the brothers was there. Sam came running.

"Cas! What happened, is he okay?"

"I don't know, Sam. He's very warm." Cas looked down at the unconscious Gabriel. "I am worried. He didn't respond at all to my healing."

Sam was taken aback. "Whoa. That isn't good. What do we do?"

Cas looked around. "Where is Dean?"

"He was out looking for Gabriel! I should call him."

"No, he knows that I'm here. He was the one who called me. I told him that I would find Gabriel and be here. Sam, we need to get him cooler."

"Right!"


	6. Chapter 6

_A common misconception about Hell is that it's hot. "A snowball's chance in Hell" and "when Hell freezes over" mean the exact opposite to what people think they mean. People don't burn in Hell. They freeze. _

_And actually, that's a lot worse. Heat can be dealt with. The cold is a much more effective means of torment. Hell isn't just some big room lit on fire with a bunch of souls tossed willy-nilly all over the place. In fact, it's very well organized. The only chaos is inside the minds of the damned. Hell is laid out like some sort of one-story medieval castle, all stony corridors and iron rod cells. Or maybe that's just where they keep the high-profile souls. In any case, that's all I've seen. _

_Sometimes, they leave me alone for years, sitting unchained in an unlocked cell, but it isn't like I could get out if I tried. I might be able to wander aimlessly for a while before they find me, but that's it. I can never fully escape, because there is no way out onto Earth. It isn't just a place, it's basically another dimension. You need some power to get between them, and I'm not an angel anymore. _

_Like I said, it's cold. The kind of cold that, if I was still alive and if I was human, would probably kill me. Unfortunately, I can only die once. _

_I'm in a different place now, not the cell. I try not to feel relieved, but I can't help it. It breaks the monotony so very nicely to be tortured. I wonder what it is this time. And then the temperature starts to drop even lower. I start to see ice crystals forming everywhere. The very air turns solid, and I would scream if the breath in my lungs wasn't solid, too. And when I shatter, I can feel each cell of my body fall apart. _

_With a snapping sound, I am put back together. The temperature is back to what it was before, but it slowly drops again. And again I am shattered. And again. And again. And again, until I can't tell the difference between when I am whole and when I am shattered. It's all just one big blur of ice. _

_I'm tossed back into my cell. I should be shivering, but I'm not. I suppose it wasn't real, they didn't actually freeze me, and it was all in my head. I can never tell anymore: what they actually do and what they make me think that they do. That's probably the point, really. _

_I close my eyes, if they were ever open. It's so dark. Silent. I can't even hear myself breathe. I don't think I am breathing. Oh. Should I be? It probably isn't a problem anymore, but breathing is reassuring, so I start. I kind of like breathing. I remind myself to breathe more often, and then I fall asleep. _

_It isn't a very restful sleep. I don't have nightmares exactly, because I'm living inside a nightmare, but whispers make their way into my mind. I come to realize, though, that the whispers aren't trying to make me afraid. Quite the opposite, in fact. I don't quite recognize the voices, but they know me. They keep telling me that everything is going to be alright. I don't understand. How can anything be alright? I'm so cold. I would tell them that, but I can't make a sound. _

_I'm not cold anymore. I'm burning up. Is this what people generally think Hell is like?_


	7. Chapter 7

The cool, wet cloth wasn't doing anything. Gabriel's face was so hot and dry that the water would disappear almost instantly, but Castiel kept trying. He also tried his best to ignore Sam and Dean arguing out in the hallway, but he wasn't very successful at that, either.

"Dean, his fever is at 104.5. That's not good. We need to take him to a hospital, now!"

"If this is being caused by something supernatural, they won't be able to do anything! Plus, what if he woke up and started talking about Hell to one of the people there? They'd think he was crazy!" Dean gestured pointlessly towards the halfway-closed bedroom door.

"He probably is!"

"I didn't bring you to the hospital when you had the Hell-crazies," Dean argued.

"I ended up there, anyway," Sam countered.

Dean sighed. "Sammy, this is Gabriel we're talking about. If we can get the fever down and get him to wake up, we can talk some sense into him."

"Dean, he doesn't need sense talked into him! He doesn't know what's real and what isn't. That's the problem."

"And if you remember, we have some experience with that sort of thing."

"Yeah, Dean, I remember. It's sort of hard to forget."

"And we figured it out."

"Uh, no, Cas fixed me, at the cost of his own sanity," Sam pointed out.

"Hey!" Cas called from the room. "Could you two please stop fighting and come in here and help me?" They glared at each other for another second before doing what Castiel asked. "We're not taking him to a hospital," Cas said firmly. "If I can't heal him, they won't be able to do anything either. He's safer here." Dean looked slightly triumphant, and Sam knew there was no point arguing anymore.

Suddenly, Gabriel started shivering violently, twisting from side to side. "Gabriel!" Cas cried. He tried to hold his brother down. "Gabriel, wake up!" Sam and Dean rushed up towards the bed, not sure if they could do anything to help. The ex-angel's face was tight with pain, his mouth open as if screaming, but no sound came out. His already pale skin turned pasty white as his temperature dropped severely and without warning.

"What the—" Dean managed, touching the now-freezing Gabriel's forehead. "How is that even possible?!" Gabriel stopped moving and went completely limp.

For a second, everyone looked relieved. Then: "He isn't breathing!" Sam shouted.

Dean swore, and felt the side of Gabriel's neck for a pulse. "His heart's still beating, though," Dean said, confused.

"Brother, listen to me," Castiel murmured softly, taking Gabriel's hand. "Breathe, please. I think you can hear me. Breathe." There was a terrible moment of stillness and silence, and then Gabriel inhaled with a gasp. He continued breathing shakily. "Good. It's alright, Gabriel. Everything's going to be alright," Cas kept whispering. Slowly, Gabriel's color and temperature returned to fairly normal levels.

"What the hell was that?" Dean said.

"I don't know," Cas answered. "But whatever he's dreaming about, I wouldn't imagine it to be very pleasant."

Just then, Gabriel awoke and sat up sharply with a startled cry. No one said anything; they let him get his bearings first. He blinked. "I'm still here, then," Gabriel stated. He looked at Castiel. "Hello, Cassie. Good morning."

"It isn't morning, Gabriel," Cas replied. "It's…" He looked over to Sam and Dean for help.

"Like four in the afternoon," Sam responded.

"Gabriel, what were you dreaming about?" Cas inquired.

Gabriel didn't respond, but glanced over at Sam and Dean meaningfully. Cas got the message. "Out, you two."

"What?" Dean protested. "It's our place!"

"Plus we've both been in Hell. It's not like we wouldn't understand," Sam added.

"Oh, never mind, it doesn't matter," Gabriel muttered. "I'm not entirely convinced that I was dreaming then and not now."

"Is there any way that we could help you figure it out?" Dean offered.

"No," Sam and Gabriel said at the same time.

"Sorry," Sam said when Gabriel looked at him, startled. "I didn't mean to interrupt, just…I've been there, and it's something that no one can help with."

Dean was looking at Sam strangely. "Sammy, I helped you, didn't I?"

"Um," Sam answered uncomfortably, "sort of. I mean, you pulled me back a couple of times. But I had to actually come to terms with the fact that I'll never be truly sure of what's real by myself."

"How did you?" Gabriel said. His voice was again as small as when he had told Cas that his grace was gone.

Sam hesitated. "I didn't? I don't know. I never really did, like there wasn't a moment where I thought, 'oh, this is all real'. I guess I just decided that even if I could wake up in Hell any time and this could never have happened, I wasn't going to let that affect any of the decisions I made. Does that make sense?"

"No," Dean said flatly.

"Yes," Gabriel contradicted. "But when did you start making sense?"

"A lot changed while you were away," Sam replied.

"I'm starting to see that, thanks."


	8. Chapter 8

_Maybe it's okay now. Maybe I really am safe. Maybe I can sleep without worrying I'll wake up in Hell and that will be what's real. I don't know. Sam said that nobody could actually help me figure it out, but I sure wish they could. Nothing is clear, but they seem to see everything so clearly. Is that because they are just part of my dream? _

_It'll take time, I know. I can't work this out in a day or two. It could take years, I suppose. Or it could never happen at all. Or I could be back in Hell, or I could die. _

_Huh. I never thought about that. Where will I go when, if, I die here as a human? Angels don't go anywhere when they die, not that I know of. We don't exactly have souls that can have an afterlife. Humans go to heaven or hell. Monsters go to purgatory. But an angel that lost his grace? Well...I just don't know. That's interesting. Because, I mean, no race really, surely knows what happens after death. There's rumors, there's beliefs, but there is never real proof or facts. _

_Well, then. That's an interesting train of thought. It scares me a little, to be honest. Because if this is real, and I'm stuck on Earth as an archangel with a faded grace, no chance of recovering it, then I will live and die as a human. Hopefully that means I will go to heaven. But just like humans, I don't know. I sort of like not knowing._

_I fall asleep in the room that the Winchester boys are lending me. Castiel has promised that he wouldn't go far. If I have nightmares and shout for him, he should be able to hear me. _

_For the first little bit of sleep, it's nice and dark and dreamless. _

_Then I am freezing again. It is so cold, but I'm on fire. The fire is pure white. Wait, there aren't any flames. It isn't fire at all._

_It is my grace. It is leaving me. _

_The light pours out of my eyes and mouth, out of every pore on my skin. It is so cold that it burns me. The pain is so intense that I can barely scream. _

_"Castiel!"_

_It's just a dream. _

_"Cas! CAS!"_

_Just a dream, just a nightmare. _

_"CASTIEL!" Please. Wake me up. _

_It's just a nightmare. _

_"CASTIEL!"_

_Or am I not dreaming anymore?_

_THE END_


	9. Epilogue

_I am screaming. I don't think he will hear me: Castiel, my little brother, because he was only just a dream. But I can't stop myself. I am freezing and burning, dying and unable to die. I am fading. The last of my grace is leaving me, because I have broken._

_And what is left for a broken angel? _

_What is left when I have no grace, no wings, no life, no soul?_

_Shall I just cease to exist?_

_I cannot remain anywhere. _

_I don't belong here anymore. Maybe, just maybe..._

_I don't understand. I still exist. I shouldn't still exist. An angel has no soul past its grace, and my grace has faded into nothingness. Where am I?_

_There is light, now, light that doesn't come from my burning grace. No, this is natural, yellow, warm. The darkness beyond the blinding light of before is gone, too, leaving in its place a background of shining green leaves and red flowers, illuminated by impossible light. It's sunlight. Wait…_

_I can't believe it. I'm home. I'm really home. I can tell, somehow, that _this_ is what's truly real. I am back in Heaven. _

_And this time, I won't run away._

* * *

><p>There you are. That's what happened. Sorry that I had labeled it as complete before, but...<p>

For a little while, I intended to end with the previous chapter. Chapter Eight. The "last" chapter. But as you might have noticed, that wasn't exactly...an ending. I really, really wanted to leave it with everything unclear as to what's real. But then I got a suggestion from ArcticHuntress, who said I could do one chapter of each; one, it's real. One, it's not. And still let the reader decide whichever one they wanted to be true, in their own mind. I set out to do that. But then I wrote this. And I didn't want to have two, now. I just wanted this. Thank you for reading all the way to the very, very end. Please, tell me what you thought. I'd truly appreciate it. I love you all. Farewell!


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